Facility Notes

HOK Sport Principal Steve Hotujac said that club lounges at Louisville's new $238M, 22,000-seat downtown arena "will have a distillery theme ... to celebrate Kentucky's bourbon heritage." At the mezzanine level, there will be "both a club lounge and a loge lounge," and HOK Sport interior designer Tracy Tapp said that the design for those venues "will follow a Bluegrass theme, saluting both Kentucky's musical roots and its rolling Thoroughbred horse farms." Louisville Arena Authority Chair Jim Host said that "work on lining up operators and sponsors for the arena's hospitality venues has slowed as the authority struggled earlier this year to finalize its financing package for the arena's construction" (BUSINESS FIRST OF LOUISVILLE, 11/7 issue). Details of the Louisville arena sponsorship opportunities were first reported by SportsBusiness Journal.

A's Owner Frustrated With Cisco Field
Developments In Fremont, California

SLOWLY BUT SURELY: A's Owner Lew Wolff said that he has "become frustrated at times" while "waiting for the past year on environmental reports for the 143-acre parcel that would hold" the club's 32,000-seat Cisco Field in Fremont, California. Wolff: "I think we can get it done, but the frustration of the process sometimes gets to me. Right now, we're playing in a football stadium. It's not good for baseball." Wolff added: "We're getting close to receiving the first drafts of the environmental impact reports. We've run into lots of things, which every developer does in California. We have an election that just happened that is favorable to our getting to Fremont. We're just following the process and we're pretty much on schedule" (MLB.com, 11/10).

WAITING GAME: The HOUSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL's Greg Barr reports the MLS Dynamo are "close to finalizing a two-year lease extension -- with a rent increase -- through 2010" at the Univ. of Houston's Robertson Stadium. The club will have to "wait until 2011 at the earliest" before their proposed downtown stadium could be completed, and that is dependent "on whether all parties can agree on a deal." Dynamo President Oliver Luck: "We haven't had any traction with [Harris County] over their contribution. And now the other thing that's hurt us is the credit markets. When they'll come around is anyone's guess" (HOUSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL, 11/7 issue).

GOLDEN TICKET: In St. Paul, Charley Walters reported the Univ. of Minnesota (UM) has sold each of their 58 stadium boxes at TCF Bank Stadium, which opens in '09, and they have "eight private suites left to sell at $45,000 each." Nearly half of their 1,200 outdoor club seats "have been sold." UM said that they have a waiting list of "400 for regular-season tickets" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 11/9).